Group of friends on a hike in New Mexico discover one of the most complete
skulls belonging to the stegomastodon

A group of friends on a stag do made an unlikely discovery while out walking on a beach in New Mexico - a perfectly preserved three-million-year-old elephant skull.

The party was on a hike in Elephant Butte Lake State Park near Albuquerque when they spotted what looked like a bone emerging from the sand.

The friends began digging until the skull surfaced.

Antonia Gradillas, 33, who was out with the group celebrating a friend’s upcoming wedding when they made the find earlier this month, said: “As we were walking we saw a bone sticking out about one or two inches from the ground.”

They thought they had found a woolly mammoth and sent photographs they took of it to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science.

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As it turned out, they were not too far off. The skull was found to belong to a stegomastodon – a prehistoric ancestor of today’s elephants and one much older than the woolly mammoth, which dates back to the Ice Age.

An archaeology group went down to the beach and packaged the skull, which weighs more than 1,000 pounds, in a cast before transporting it to the museum, where it will be studied and eventually put on display.

Mastodons – relatives of the elephant – stood 10 feet tall and migrated to North America around 15 million years ago, before becoming extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Experts believe receding water exposed the skull, which they say is the most complete of its kind and could shed more light on the mammal.

Gary Morgan, a paleontologist at the museum, estimated that the creature uncovered by Mr Gradillas and his friends likely stood about 9ft tall, weighed more than six tons and was about 50 years old when it died.

"This mastodon find is older than the woolly mammoth that tread the Earth in the Ice Age. It probably died on a sandbar of the ancient Rio Grande River," he said.

“It was living, drinking, feeding alongside the ancient Rio Grande three million years ago,” he said.

“This is far and away the best one we’ve ever found.”

Mr Gradillas said of the find: “This is the coolest thing ever. Some people with PhDs in this field might not even have this kind of opportunity. We were so lucky.”